Anand is held by Fabiano

Bilbao: World champion Viswanathan Anand’s hunt for an elusive victory continued as he was held to a draw by Fabiano Caruana of Italy in the eighth round of the fifth Final Masters here at the Alhondiga.

The eighth draw in as many games means that Anand is now out of any real title contention in the six-player double round-robin tournament barring a miracle that seems pretty unlikely.

Draws, in fact, were the order of the day as other two games in the super tournament also reached the same result.

Sergey Karjakin of Russia signed peace with World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen.